Consider the class of contextually sensitive expressions whose context invariant meanings arguably do not suffice to secure semantic values in context. Demonstratives and demonstrative pronouns are the examples of such expressions that have received the most attention from philosophers. However, arguably this class of contextually sensitive expressions includes among other expressions modals, conditionals, tense, gradable adjectives, possessives, ‘only’, quantifiers, and expressions that take implicit arguments (e.g. ‘ready’ in sentences like ‘Molly is ready.’). Most theorists, including me, think that since the context invariant meanings of such expressions do not by themselves secure semantic values in context for these expressions, they must be supplemented in some way in context in order to secure semantic values in context. For this reason, I call these expressions supplementives. I just said that supplementives need some sort of supplementation to secure semantic values in context. Of course, the question of what form the supplementation in context takes is controversial. For example, ever since Kaplan claimed that the semantic value of a demonstrative or demonstrative pronoun in context is the demonstratum of its associated demonstration, there has been a lively controversy over whether that or some other account is the correct one. Call an account of how a given supplementive secures a semantic value in context a metasemantics for the supplementive. In King [2018] I argue that all supplementives have felicitous uses in which they haven’t been assigned unique semantic values in context. This conclusion is somewhat surprising, since many uses of supplementives in which they have not been assigned unique semantic values in context are quite infelicitous. I call felicitous uses of supplementives in which they haven’t been assigned unique semantic values in context instances of felicitous underspecification. The central idea is that in cases of felicitous underspecification, supplementives get assigned a range of candidates for being their semantic values in contexts rather than being assigned unique semantic values in contexts. Consider an example. Glenn and I are out surfing at Lost Winds beach. There are some surfers to our south stretching a quarter mile or so down the beach. I notice that some surfers in an ill-defined group to our immediate south are getting incredible rides. I say to Glenn looking south toward them ‘Those guys are good.’ It seems easy to imagine that nothing in the context of utterance determines a unique group of surfers as the semantic value in context of ‘Those guys’. For example, it is easy to imagine that I didn’t intend any specific, unique group to be the semantic value in context. Instead, there is a range of overlapping groups that are legitimate candidates for being the semantic value in context of ‘Those guys’. Nonetheless, my utterance is felicitous: Glenn had no qualms about my utterance and took it to be impeccably acceptable. So this is an instance of felicitous underspecification. As its title suggests, felicitous underspecification is the main topic of the present book. Here is a summary of what is in each chapter. Chapter 1 provides examples of felicitous underspecification for a variety of supplementives. In each case of felicitous underspecification considered in Chap. 1, I say how I think conversational participants update the Stalnakerian common ground after accepting the utterance of the sentence containing a felicitous underspecified use of a supplementive. I do so without there formulating a principle that determines the updates in question. In Chap. 2, I formulate such a principle and illustrate its predictions with some of the cases of felicitous underspecification considered in Chap. 1. I claim the principle correctly predicts the updates discussed in Chap. 1. In Chap. 3, I consider and discuss the mechanism that I claim associates ranges of candidate semantic values in context with felicitous underspecified uses of supplementives. In Chap. 4, I discuss cases in which felicitous underspecified uses of supplementives are embedded in certain ways: under negation, and under ‘believes’ and ‘doubts’. In Chap. 5 I take up I take up the question of why sentences containing felicitous underspecified uses of supplementives are felicitous in the contexts in which they are uttered. In particular, I formulate a notion of a context being appropriate for an LF, where an LF is felicitous in a context only if the context is appropriate for the LF. In particular, an LF ϕ containing a use of an underspecified supplementive in a context c will be felicitous only if c is appropriate for ϕ. In Chap. 6, I take up some problems that arise with underspecified uses of pronouns, demonstratives and possessives and consider revising the appropriateness condition of Chap. 5.

考虑一类上下文敏感的表达式，其上下文不变含义可以说不足以保护上下文中的语义值。指示代词和指示代词是此类表达方式最受哲学家关注的例子。然而，可以说，这类上下文敏感的表达包括情态、条件、时态、可分级的形容词、所有格、'only'、量词和采用隐含参数的表达式（例如，'Molly is ready'等句子中的'ready'）。大多数理论家，包括我，都认为，由于这种表达的上下文不变含义本身并不能确保这些表达式的上下文中的语义值，因此必须在上下文中以某种方式补充它们，以确保上下文中的语义值。因此，我称这些表达式为补充。我刚才说过，补充语需要某种补充语来确保上下文中的语义值。当然，上下文中的补充采取什么形式的问题是有争议的。例如，自从卡普兰声称上下文中指示代词或指示代词的语义价值是其相关证明的证明以来，关于该描述或其他解释是否正确的争论就一直存在。将给定补充词如何在上下文中确保语义值的帐户称为补充词的元语义。在 King [2018] 中，我认为所有补充词都有美好的用途，它们没有在上下文中被赋予独特的语义值。 这个结论有点令人惊讶，因为许多补充词的用法没有在上下文中被赋予独特的语义值，这是相当不恰当的。我称之为补充词的 felicitous 使用，其中它们没有在 felicitous underspecification 的上下文实例中被分配唯一的语义值。中心思想是，在严重欠规范的情况下，补充词被分配了一系列候选词作为它们在上下文中的语义值，而不是在上下文中被分配唯一的语义值。请看一个例子。Glenn 和我在 Lost Winds 海滩冲浪。我们南边有一些冲浪者沿着海滩延伸四分之一英里左右。我注意到，在我们紧邻南部的一个定义不明确的群体中，一些冲浪者正在获得令人难以置信的骑行体验。我对向南望向他们的 Glenn 说，'那些家伙很厉害。似乎很容易想象，在话语的上下文中，没有任何东西可以确定一组独特的冲浪者作为 'Those guys' 上下文中的语义值。例如，很容易想象我并不打算将任何特定的、独特的组作为上下文中的语义值。相反，有一系列重叠的组是 '那些家伙' 上下文中语义值的合法候选者。尽管如此，我的话还是很美好的：Glenn 对我的话没有任何顾虑，并认为它是无可挑剔的。所以这是一个 felicious underspecification 的例子。正如它的标题所暗示的那样，felicitous underspecification 是本书的主要主题。以下是每章内容的摘要。第 1 章提供了各种补充剂的 felicous underspecification 示例。在 Chap. 1，我说我认为对话参与者在接受了包含修饰语的未指定使用的句子后如何更新 Stalnakerian 的共同点。我这样做时没有制定确定相关更新的原则。在第 2 章中，我制定了这样一个原则，并用第 1 章中考虑的一些 felicous underspecification 的情况来说明它的预测。我声称该原理正确地预测了第 1 章中讨论的更新。在第 3 章中，我考虑并讨论了我声称的机制，即在上下文中将候选语义值的范围与补充词的未指定用法联系起来。在第 4 章中，我讨论了补充剂的 felicly underspecified 用途以某种方式嵌入的情况：在否定下，在 “相信 ”和 “怀疑 ”下。在第 5 章中，我提出了一个问题，即为什么包含修饰语的 fylicic、underspecified 用法的句子在说出它们的上下文中是 felicious 的。特别是，我提出了一个上下文适合 LF 的概念，其中只有当上下文适合 LF 时，LF 在上下文中才是吉祥的。特别是，在上下文 c 中包含未指定补充词的 LF φ只有在 c 适合 φ 时才是吉祥的。在第 6 章中，我讨论了代词、指示词和所有格使用不足所引起的一些问题，并考虑修改第 5 章的适当性条件。